I made my yearly trek out the the Minnesota State Fair today. Where I usually go it alone, today we were celebrating the start of Kindergarten for two sweet boys (both of whom I will miss desperately at my preschool!). So Julen, his BFF and his mamas and I braved the crazy late summer heat (98, feels like 107) and headed out to the great MN get-together.

It was fun to see the fair through someone elses eyes and not just go to the Fine Arts and Creative Arts buildings which is what I usually do. This year was going to be different, it was a celebration for the two boys starting their schooling journey tomorrow.

Still, I never miss the trash sculpture with garbage fished out of the Mississippi river. So many plastic bottles...

...and of course I always HAVE to see what the largest pumpkin weighed in at...881 pounds!

Today was Veterans Day and to celebrate them there was a nice parade, bandanas and a fly-over.

I hadn't been to see the butter sculptures since I was a little girl...I could never find them! But friend Margaret knew right where to go. The sculptor and the princess looked oddly out of place with their heavy coats on, freezing in the cooler while we were all melting outside.

This day was about the boys...they ate tons of junk, rode the rides until they were dizzy, bought eachother a gift in the International Bazaar, played in the arcade, laughed and ran around like crazy.

And then they hopped in the photo booth for a souvenir of their great last day of summer together.

We took summer down in big happy gulps, living by some unwritten rule that we would just go where the wind took us...a hot and sweaty day? To the beach. In an exploring mood? Grab the bikes and a picnic and go. Boredom setting in? Perfect...pack a blanket and some books and head to the lake. It kind of didn't matter what we were doing, as long as we were together. Summer camps and over-scheduling for the boys was not on the menu these past two months, and all that free time made us all the more prepared to head into this new school year today.

Wee blossoms...the first of the mum flowers always a certain indication that summer is winding down.

My fourth grader excitedly woke ready to take on a new school, a new grade and a new year. Made it all the harder for Julen for whom Kindergarten doesn't start until Wednesday. Phew. Just enough time for me to stitch together his nap blanket for school (I love that they still nap in Kindergarten-I know many schools have given up on this tradition, but the five-year-old children really DO still need it!). We picked out the fabric last week...robots and orange. Julen's two new obsessions.

I finalized all the paperwork I need to do for the start of my new preschool year. I know that most of my parents probably don't care that I use my hand carved stamp and spend time drawing a willow tree on the front of each manual, but it's important and fun for me, so I do it anyway. Postcard writing for tomorrow.

To further avoid that dreaded long list, I decided to go "up North" to spend some time at my happy place.

We first stopped at my cousins cabin for a much needed reconnect with family at a reunion that had been planned for months. I was so happy to see all these wonderful people and catch up, that I did not take one photo. There are many, many cousins, and a lot of them have grandchildren so it was a bustling and busy and lovely, lovely time. My boys were in heaven!

From there to the cabin, my two plus my nephew and a friend. Four days of play for these sweet boys who never grew tired of one another. The night sounds are so crazy different from the city...just the constant call of the loons through the night and the crickets and the plunking of the acorns as they hit the roof/picnic table/ground.

One of the smartest things I've done since opening my preschool six years ago now is to allow myself to take a month off. I worked the month of June, running summer camps and taking care of the house, then my teaching partner took over doing the same for the month of July. I can't even begin to express what a relief it was for me to not have to worry about yard work, answering emails, or even just stopping by to pick up the mail. For the first time I truly had a mental break from my work and it.was.wonderful!

But now, it's time for me to get back to work. I'm a week into creating the mountain of paperwork that has to be distributed to each family and now I'm starting to feel anxious about the physical work I have to do at the school.

These photos are a To Do List of sorts. Scroll over each photo for a description if you care to.

Last night's storms brought dozens of branches and tons of acorns down to the ground prematurely. On our walk around the lake today the boys gathered up handfuls of oak tree pieces. So I knit up these little cutie acorn head gnomes. Julen spent the rest of his day lost in imaginative play with these two. They are such a hit, guess I'll have to stitch up a few more.

This has been the summer of Star Wars in our home. Both boys have become completely enthralled with the story...Star Wars books have been the number one checked out books from the library these past three months. Any new Legos they have wanted have been Star Wars Legos. And most important to them are their treasured Tom Angleberger books. ART2-D-2's Guide to Folding and Doodling book is the favorite, closely followed by The Secret of the Fortune Wookie.

Tom Angleberger's blog is filled with all sorts of tempting ideas for my nine-year-old to scout out...like these instructions for origami Darth Vader. Once the boys got started folding...it was...look out! Folded creations started multiplying in my house faster than dirty socks and don't even get me started on how frustrating it was that they kept emptying the printer of all it's paper!

They have had so much fun though, and I do love that the instructions are easy enough even for my five-year-old to fold without my supervision. They have had hours of fun and then play with all of their creations. In ART2-D2's guide pictured above, there were even instructions on how to make your own origami yoda tshirt...my boys were relentless and bugged me until they finally got to make them (Tom suggests weighing the pattern down using pennies...guess he hasn't heard of freezer paper stencils yet!) Anyway, as you can see they turned out so cute and have been the "uniform" of the summer.

Papa is home from his yearly coaching stint in Princeton. It's good for our family to be whole again...it gets harder each year to do the solo parenting for such a chunk of time. He came bearing gifts. I'm in love with my new vase he found at the University's Museum Store. He immediately filled it with red dogwood branches. So lovely.

It doesn't happen very often. Getting to participate in a slice of history. But my boys and I were given that opportunity on Wednesday, July 31st when we made our way to the downtown Minneapolis courthouse at 10:00 pm to witness the first (of 42) same-sex marriages that took place in Minnesota starting just after midnight on August first. I first met the brides, Cathy and Margaret, when they enrolled their son in my preschool three years ago. He and Julen are best buddies and my boys were not going to let the late night wedding keep them from being a part of this wonderful celebration. It was truly a night to remember...

There has been so much press surrounding the legal marriage of this beautiful family, I wouldn't even know where to begin. My mom has been saving all the newspaper articles for me...there are still more to come!

My boys were thrilled to meet our Mayor, R.T. Rybak, and boldly asked for handshakes, hugs and a photo for the older one. What a night for him! He continued to wed couples until 6:30 in the morning!

Reception, cake, dancing, it's hard to believe my boys stayed up until 2:30 in the morning. As we are recovering from the emotion of it all, the love felt in the city that night, the late night, we are all still smiling with joy.

Congratulations to the newlyweds and all couples in our state who choose marriage and are now lawfully able to wed.